Halloween may have come and gone, but the opening of “Middle Man” featured men in rudimentary masks driving through an Indiana cornfield, chasing a woman they’d kidnapped and released just to catch again for fun. That is to say it wouldn’t have felt out of place in the kind of slasher film you put on at the end of October to get into the holiday spirit.
Photo by RON TOM — © 2010 ABC STUDIOS.
As it turns out, the culprits here were not chainsaw-wielding madmen, but instead a trio of college students who kidnapped exotic dancers after their shifts on Friday nights at a busy club. They’d bring the women home, drug them, handcuff them to a pole and force them to dance. Then by Sunday night, the “leader” would murder them. The local sheriff made a comment that the women may have been “asking for it.” Hotcher shot that down immediately, reminded him that this was his case and not a show, then got to work. Quite a strange comment for a man in his position to make, but it would make more sense later in the episode.
An interesting wrinkle was that the other two men didn’t know about the murders until they saw it on the local news; they were down for the kidnapping and raping, but drew the line there. I found this to be an interesting look inside a criminal mind. They somehow were able to justify abduction and rape but obviously still had somewhat of a conscience somewhere in that warped rationale. As the BAU team predicted, the hierarchy of the trio broke down and the third member – who was not around from the beginning – has his loyalty questioned and ends up murdered himself after trying to feed the kidnapped woman breakfast while promising to help her. The group was now a pair, and the second in command turned out to be the sheriff’s son. Feeling remorse, he called his father but couldn’t speak when he picked up the phone. I thought his story (the “middle man” as the episode’s title suggests) was a statement of how growing up being bullied (especially when it’s by a family member; in this case, the boy’s father) doesn’t lead to good things, and that parenting is the most important thing in a child’s life.
In the final standoff, the sheriff had to kill the leader and shoot his own son in the arm to keep him from killing himself. While the episode wasn’t extraordinary, it was the standard enjoyable fare (which is not a bad thing for a show like this) with a little something extra. Grade: B
Some moments I liked:
– Garcia got iPads for the entire team, save for Reid who didn’t like the idea of going paperless. When asked where the funding for them came from, she said “I did a thing.” What thing? Was it not answered because it’s not important or will it come up later this season?
– Reid saying he didn’t have a problem with the exotic dancer / the club, and qualifying it with “I’m from Las Vegas.”
– Hotcher’s first meeting/confrontation with Sheriff Salters, and then his heartfelt goodbye speech to him about being a father and being there for his son.
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